Way the hell after 2008 is a thing of the past, it’s Zestful Contemplation’s Best of 2008 Awards. I’m not pretending to make my awards comprehensive or unbiased or any of that other pretentious crap. The fact that these awards reflect my own personal experiences, tastes, and dislikes is exactly the point. I haven’t played every game that came out this year and I’m not going to consider a boatload of titles I never played. But I did play a huge number of games this year, and these choices reflect my personal tastes and thoughts about the games I spent time with in 2008.

Best Platforming Game

Contenders:

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

LittleBigPlanet

LostWinds

Prince of Persia

The platforming genre is not as strong as it used to be, which is saddening for me as it has always been one of my personal favorites. Still, even though there weren’t many entries this year, the ones that did come around delivered some pretty amazing gameplay. So while we might be lacking in quantity, we certainly had quality this year.

Before anyone asks, yes, I think Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts belongs in the platformer genre. Just because you’re platforming with cars and boats instead of the feet of a fuzzy bear doesn’t mean you’re not still platforming. The methods have changed but the genre ha stayed the same.

Though it couldn’t quite compete with the big boys for the ultimate award, I would like to give a shout out to LostWinds here. It proves what great things can be possible with downloadable games and remains easily one of the best things available on WiiWare.

Nuts and Bolts and LittleBigPlanet have some interesting parallels. For one, they both have control issues that produce a few frustrating moments but manage to be incredibly fun despite this. For two, they both emphasize creation of content by the user.

For the big prize, I had to give it to Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. It was a tough decision, but here’s my reasoning. What made LittleBigPlanet fun for me was its environments, its creativity, and playing other people’s levels, not necessarily its gameplay. In fact, the core mechanics of the game are some of its biggest drawbacks. Imprecision is an unfortunately common accomplice during play.

As such, Nuts and Bolts does the core of what it sets out to do better. Sure its control is plenty wonky, just like LittleBigPlanet’s, but that can usually be mitigated somewhat by altering your vehicle. This integration of creation with gameplay is the other thing I really admire about it. While it’s entirely optional to create your own levels in LittleBigPlanet, it’s absolutely necessary to create vehicles to succeed in Nuts and Bolts. Making the creation aspects not only easy enough that anyone can use them but also vital to success is an ingenious move that is highly satisfying to the player.